Don't Burn Down the House
by scoob2222
Summary: A series of out of order snippets in the future marriage of Lulu and Cruz
1. Don't Burn Down the House

For leobrat

He's rushing to put the roses in a vase before the water boils over the top of the pot. Then he hurries to get the pasta in. He's got maybe fifteen minutes before Liz drops her off and he needs everything to be ready when she gets here.

Also he's rather not have hot water around in case she decided to throw something at him.

He jumped when he heard the key in the lock. Damn it they were early.

"Cruz," she called.

He rushed in, "Hey baby," he said grabbing her bags for her and kissing her cheek, "Happy Valentine's Day."

"Why are you wearing an apron?" she asked, as she held onto his shoulder and slipped out of her shoes.

"I'm cooking," he said slowly wondering if she was going to hit him with the shoe. They had very high heels.

"I thought we were going out."

"Well, I just thought, after a day out shopping you'd be tired. Plus, with the way you've been feeling lately…Oh! Crap." The shoe hit him right between the eyes. That was his Lulu—she hit what she aimed at.

"You don't want to be seen with me anymore because I'm fat and ugly," she yelled then promptly covered her face and broke into tears.

"Lulu, querida, that's crazy."

Exactly the wrong thing to say.

She looked up and glared through her tears, "So now I'm crazy. Crazy pregnant freak of a wife."

"Lu, you are not crazy. And you are not fat or ugly." Slowly he came closer. "You," he said as he pulled her hands gently away from her face, "Are the most beautiful mommy to be in the world. And the most beautiful woman in the universe."

"Really?" She sniffled and leaned closer to him.

"Of course, baby. Listen why don't you go change and I'll take out. I never canceled out reservation so…."

"Cruz, do I smell smoke?"

"Shit!" he ran to the kitchen. The water had boiled over and the garlic bread was burning—the smoke pouring out of the oven. He ran to turn both off before opening the window and waving his arms trying to get the smoke out. He stopped when he heard laughter.

Lulu, his 6 month pregnant, insanely hormonal wife, the one that had been on edge since last week when she discovered she could no longer see her feet was standing in the doorway of their kitchen, hand over her belly, foot stamping, face red and positively giddy with laughter.

"That makes you happy. Hours of cooking and me burning it all makes you laugh for the first time in days," he said this all in one breath and then collapsed into a kitchen chair.

Still giggling softly she walked over and sat down in his lap, "I'm sorry, babe, really. It was just so funny."

"I noticed."

She stopped laughing completely, "It was also really, really sweet." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, then one to his nose and finally a soft, but firm press of her lips against his.

"Good, I was aiming for sweet."

"You succeeded."

Suddenly Lulu stands up and yawns, "You know, I'm really tired from all that shopping. You wanna….go to bed?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

"Bed….yeah, let's go to bed." Anxious to get her upstairs before she changed her mind and started throwing things again, Cruz quickly got up and double checked that nothing was still on that might burn the house down. Then he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the stairs.

Despite the mess in the kitchen and the black and blue on his head he felt confident in calling this Valentine's Day a success.


	2. Comfort

When they first began dating he barely discussed his work. In fact most of the time he tried to keep her away from anything violent, illegal, or unpleasant in any way. It didn't work of course but he tried anyway.

After awhile though, when they became more serious, she had become bothered by the fact that he wouldn't share anything with her. She respected his need to keep some of the horrible things he saw to himself, but she also felt like he was shutting her out of a whole part of his life….out of a whole part of himself.

So, they had come to a compromise—something they had gotten good at over the last few years. He would talk to her about work when he could and when he couldn't or didn't want to he would tell her that. And she wouldn't be offended either way. It worked for the both of them and in the end had only made their relationship stronger.

She'd taken to lying down in the afternoons when she could; the extra weight of her 6 month pregnant belly was hard on her back. She'd heard him come in and head straight for her and the moment he entered the bedroom she'd known that something was terribly wrong.

His eyes were filled with such pain that it physically hurt her to look at them. She knew that he'd been working on a child pornography ring for the last few months and somehow she knew just from looking at him that whatever he had found today had been very, very bad. She opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped and simply held her arms out to him.

He all but collapsed next to her, his hand coming up to cover her belly as he pillowed his head on her breasts. She ran her hands through his hair, murmuring soft words until she felt him relax. The rhythm of his breathing let her know that he was asleep.

She had no idea how long her slept, but it was long enough that eventually she must have fallen too. When she woke up it was to hear him whispering softly.

"And when you're old enough I'm going to teach you how to play baseball, I'm sure you'll be amazing at it. And your mom will play with us, and don't expect her to let you win because she never will, she'll make you do your best every time, won't give you an inch. But then she'll tell you how amazing you were at it. Your mom is so good at making everyone feel good about themselves—she's like this huge light and no matter how down you are she'll make it better, just by being around her."

He stopped and his hand rubbed her tummy slowly, "And no matter what happens I'm going to take care of you and your mom. No matter what you will always know how much we love you. I would do anything for you, I love you so much."

Cruz stopped talking suddenly and she could hear him crying softly. She tightened her arms around him and he looked up suddenly, started to see her awake.

"We love you too," she told him and held him against her as he let the pain of the day out.


	3. Damsel

He was never the damsel in distress type, so it was a good thing that his wife was no damsel.

But the fact that she wasn't just made the moment that began everything even funnier.

Well, he found it funny, she found it irritating.

When he told the story he described how he'd promised Lucky that he would find her so that he could concentrate on his pregnant wife. How she'd fought him when he'd tried to pick her up—something he'd learn to love about her in the future. And finally how days later he couldn't stop himself from thinking about how good she felt in his arms.

She describes how she was taking care of herself just fine without him coming in and manhandling her. That she would have gotten herself out of there and that she absolutely did not need him and her brother "protecting her." And she certainly didn't need to be carried off like a little girl.

Little did he know then that carrying her around would become a common occurrence. Generally it would start with her investigating something and getting herself in major trouble. Her saying, "No Cruz, I'm fine and I don't need you to help me, stay out of my business," and eventually ending with him carting her off over his shoulder and having to remind himself of all the reasons he couldn't kiss her.

Until the day that he did kiss her.

The day he told her he loved her.

Of course that didn't stop her from getting into all kinds of trouble, and it didn't stop him from being forced to carry her away from it…he just carried her back to his house instead of hers.

Until finally his house became their house and he carried her over the threshold—not over his shoulder, but just like the first time he'd held her two years earlier.

But by far his favorite memory is twirling her around in circles seconds after she told him they were having a baby.


End file.
